Alaska Renames Columbus Day ‘Indigenous Peoples Day’

Alaska has officially renamed Columbus Day “Indigenous Peoples Day,” joining a growing body of local governments moving in that direction. --In an executive proclamation, Gov. Bill Walker wrote that “Alaska is built upon the homelands and communities of the Indigenous Peoples of this region, without whom the building of the state would not be possible.”

Read more at Time.com

Related: Why the Left Hates Columbus Read More......

SUBJECT: FW: ANWAR

This post is from an older email that first circulated in 2008 and has come around again. The photos (below the fold) are beautiful and they do tell a story. Snopes rates the email on ANWR as "MULTIPLE" (containing true and false claims). However, are we energy independent yet? No. Have we gained on reducing our dependence on foreign oil? Not substantially, if at all. Should the debate on drilling in ANWR be resumed? There is some good current information at www.anwr.org.--bc

See the email below...

VIA EMAIL, 11/18/2010 (Hat tip: Carolyn Webb)

"Unbelievable! This is the best presentation on ANWR I have seen. I would like to add a little more information. A new pipeline across Alaska isn't required since the location for drilling in ANWR is about 70 miles from the North Slope Prudhoe Bay pipeline [Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS)] where it would be connected. Second the wildlife love the pipeline since it is heated and provides a shelter during the worst times during the winter."

FIRST, do you know what ANWR is?
ANWR = Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Now, a comparison...


And some perspective...


Note where the proposed development areas is. (It's in the "ANWR Coastal Plain")


The following pictures are what the Democrats, Liberals and "Greens" show you when they talk about ANWR... and they are right, these are photographs of ANWR.



Isn't ANWR beautiful? Why should we drill here (and destroy) this beautiful place? Well, that's not exactly the truth. Do you remember the map showing the proposed drilling area in the ANWR Coastal Plain? Do the photos above look like a coastal plain to you? What's going on here? The answer is simple. The photos above do NOT show where the plan proposes to drill!

Below is what the proposed exploration area actually looks like in the winter.


And this it what it actually looks like in the summer...




Here are a couple screen shots from GOOGLE EARTH...
(Click these images for larger view)


As you can see(above), the proposed drilling area is a barren wasteland. Oh, and they say that they are concerned about the effect on the local wildlife?

Below is a photo (shot during the summer) of the "depleted wildlife" situation created by drilling around Prudhoe Bay. Do you think the caribou really HATE that drilling?


Here's the same spot during the winter...


Hey, this bear seems to really HATE the pipeline near Prudhoe Bay, which accounts for 17% of U.S. Domestic oil production


Now, why do you think that the Democrats are lying about ANWR? Remember when Al Gore said that the government should work to artificially raise gas prices to $5.00 a gallon? Well, Al Gore and his fellow Democrats have almost reached their goal!

Now that you know that the Democrats have been lying, what are you going to do about it?

Read More......

Dewey's Take On Palin

By Dewey Whetsell--Fisherman
(Hat tip: Stella Guenther/via email)

The last 45 of my 66 years I've spent in a commercial fishing town in Alaska. I understand Alaska politics but never understood national politics well until this last year. Here's the breaking point: Neither side of the Palin controversy gets it...It's not about persona, style, rhetoric, it's about doing things. Even Palin supporters never mention the things that I'm about to mention here.

1. Democrats forget when Palin was the Darling of the Democrats, because as soon as Palin took the Governor's office away from a fellow Republican and tough SOB, Frank Murkowski, she tore into the Republican's "Corrupt Bastards Club" (CBC) and sent them packing.
   
   Many of them are now residing in State housing and wearing orange jump suits. The Democrats reacted by skipping around the yard, throwing confetti and singing "la la la la" (well, you know how they are). Name another governor in this country that has ever done anything similar. But while you're thinking, I'll continue.
   
   
2. Now with the CBC gone, there were fewer Alaskan politicians to protect the huge, giant oil companies here. So, she constructed and enacted a new system of splitting the oil profits called "ACES". Exxon (the biggest corporation in the world) protested and Sarah told them "don't let the door hit you in the stern on your way out." They stayed, and Alaska residents went from being merely wealthy to being filthy rich. Of course the other huge international oil companies meekly fell in line. Again, give me the name of any other governor in the country that has done anything similar.
   
   
3. The other thing she did when she walked into the governor's office is she got the list of State requests for federal funding for projects, known as "pork". She went through the list, took 85% of them and placed them in the "when-hell-freezes-over" stack. She let locals know that if we need something built, we'll pay for it ourselves. Maybe she figured she could use the money she got from selling the previous governor's jet because it was extravagant. Maybe she could use the money she saved by dismissing the governor's cook (remarking that she could cook for her own family), giving back the State vehicle issued to her, maintaining that she already had a car, and dismissing her State provided security force (never mentioning - I imagine ˆ that she's packing heat herself). I'm still waiting to hear the names of those other governors.
   
   
4. Now, even with her much-ridiculed "gosh and golly" mannerism, she also managed to put together a totally new approach to getting a natural gas pipeline built which will be the biggest private construction project in the history of North America. No one else could do it although they tried. If that doesn't impress you, then you're trying too hard to be unimpressed while watching her do things like this while baking up a batch of brownies with her other hand.
   
   
5. For 30 years, Exxon held a lease to do exploratory drilling at a place called Point Thompson. They made excuses the entire time why they couldn't start drilling. In truth they were holding it like an investment. No governor for 30 years could make them get started. This summer, she told them she was revoking their lease and kicking them out. They protested and threatened court action. She shrugged and reminded them that she knew the way to the court house.
   
   Alaska won again.
   
   
6. President Obama wants the nation to be on 25% renewable resources for electricity by 2025. Sarah went to the legislature and submitted her plan for Alaska to be at 50% renewables by 2025. We are already at 25%. I can give you more specifics about things done, as opposed to style and persona. Everybody wants to be cool, sound cool, look cool. But that's just a cover-up. I'm still waiting to hear from liberals the names of other governors who can match what mine has done in two and a half years. I won't be holding my breath.
   
   By the way, she was content to to return to AK after the national election and go to work, but the haters wouldn't let her. Now these adolescent screechers are obviously not scuba divers. And no one ever told them what happens when you continually jab and pester a barracuda.
   
   Without warning, it will spin around and tear your face off. Shoulda known better.....

Dewey Whetsell Read More......

Gallup: 70 Percent say Palin's resignation has no effect on their opinion

AMERICAN SPECTATOR, 7/7/2009 by Philip Klein - A new Gallup poll finds that 70 percent of Americans say that Sarah Palin's decision to resign as governor of Alaska has no effect on their opinion of her. At the same time, 17 percent view her less favorably as a result of the move, and 9 percent view her more favorably. Meanwhile, Palin continues to be polarizing, with 43 percent saying they would be very or somewhat likely to vote for her as president and 54 percent saying they would be "not too likely" or "not at all likely" to vote for her. But the media gets overwhelmingly bad reviews, with 53 percent of Americans saying that coverage of Palin has been "unfairly negative" while only 9 percent say it's "unfairly positive" and 28 percent say it's "about right." Read more at the American Spectator... Read More......

Don Young Embodies What's Wrong With the GOP

Opinion Journal, Page A13, June 6, 2008 - By Pat Toomey

Today, the Club for Growth Political Action Committee endorses Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell in his bid to unseat Republican Rep. Don Young in the state's August primary.

The reason for the endorsement is simple. Mr. Parnell is a solid conservative who led the fight for lower taxes and spending in the state legislature, and joined Gov. Sarah Palin in pushing for reform in the state. The man he is hoping to replace isn't economically conservative in the least. Mr. Young is actually a poster child for what has gone wrong with the Republican Party in Washington.

Over his 35 years in Congress, Mr. Young made himself into the most powerful Republican on the House Transportation Committee. But instead of using his power to steer Republicans down a principled, conservative track, he helped derail the GOP train in 2006.

Mr. Young spends taxpayer money so wastefully he could make a liberal Democrat blush. As chairman of the Transportation Committee (from 2001 to 2007), Mr. Young was directly responsible for one of the biggest boondoggles of the Republican majority – the 2005 highway bill. With a price tag of $296 billion, the highway bill contained a record 6,371 pork projects.
One of those projects was the $223 million Bridge to Nowhere, inserted by Mr. Young. The notorious bridge was meant to connect the city of Ketchikan, Alaska – population 8,000 – to an airport on Gravina Island – population 50. Instead, it came to symbolize Republican excess, and helped cost the GOP its majority.

But the bridge isn't Mr. Young's only earmark to draw negative attention. It seems the veteran lawmaker inserted a $10 million earmark into the 2006 transportation bill for a road project in Florida.

Of course, Florida is not exactly next door to Alaska, so more than a few people have wondered why Mr. Young pushed to fund the pork-barrel project. Among those inquiring into the matter is the Justice Department, which is looking at the fact that a Florida real estate developer, Daniel J. Aronoff, who stands to benefit from the federal earmark, has raised some $40,000 for Mr. Young's campaign coffers.

It's not just on spending that Mr. Young abandons Republican principles. Recently, he has joined with Democrats in voting to increase the minimum wage, increase income taxes on top earners, and to pass a bloated farm bill. Mr. Young also voted for "card check," which would allow unions to organize without holding secret ballot elections.

He has a history of voting against important free-trade agreements and, just a couple of weeks ago, proposed a $1 per-gallon tax increase on gasoline. He must not have had to fill up at the pump lately.

During his time in Congress, Mr. Young has come to represent the worst of a Republican Party that became too comfortable in power. In 1995, a Republican majority passed a budget that actually cut spending. Today, only 40 Republicans out of 248 GOP senators and representatives have sworn off earmarks, despite overwhelming support for earmark reform among the party's base and the general public.

Just 12 years ago, the Republican Caucus, including Mr. Young, voted for a bill to phase out farm subsidies. Three weeks ago, Mr. Young and many of those same members voted for a farm bill that exemplifies everything the GOP once stood against. Somewhere between then and now, many congressional Republicans abandoned their former commitment to limited government, fiscal discipline and economic freedom.

There is no question that the Republican Party is in trouble. Faced with staggering losses in 2006 and what might be an even worse election cycle this year, GOP congressmen are finally acknowledging the dismal state of the Republican brand. What are they doing about it?
Not much. The reason is that Mr. Young and many other members are not willing to change. They don't want to give up their pork projects, their subsidies and their favorite big-government programs. And those members with the temerity to challenge the broken system are berated as disloyal and threatened.

"Those who bite me will be bitten back," Mr. Young warned New Jersey's Republican Rep. Scott Garrett last July. Mr. Garrett had tried to remove a $34 million earmark inserted into an appropriations bill by Mr. Young.

The Alaska primary represents a crossroads for Republicans. Will party leaders line up behind Mr. Young, even as the Justice Department is looking into his earmarks? Or will they tell him they cannot support a member who has flagrantly disrespected taxpayers and abandoned Republican principles?

If Republicans want to start winning again they need to return to the principles of fiscal responsibility and limited government that won them control of Congress in 1994. This is no easy task. But the GOP can start by showing Mr. Young the door.

Mr. Toomey, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, is the president of the Club for Growth.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

Read More......